Captain Scott (r) was involved in a bitter feud with Albert Armitage

The Scott Polar Institute in Cambridge had hoped to buy the diary, written by Captain Albert Armitage during the 1901 to 1904 voyage to the Antarctic.

The Institute was outbid at auction by a private collector who paid £36,000. In the diary, Armitage writes of his early enthusiasm for working for Scott, but later describes their rivalry.

Rob Headland, of the Scott Polar Research Institute in Cambridge, tried to raise the money needed to keep the diary for future generations, but was outbid at the last moment.

Tense conversations

The book, still almost perfect inside, had been held privately for a century.

Its pages describe the pride of Captain Armitage felt when serving under Captain Scott on an epic journey, fraught with danger and discovery, to the unknown continent.

"It is very agreeable to be associated with Captain Scott who is at once both clear-headed, amiable and considerate," he wrote on 30 October 1902.

Later he recorded tense conversations with Scott in minute detail, revealing a bitter rivalry between the two explorers.

Pages may be missing

"In such a case a diary tends to be almost a man's confessional," Mr Headland said.

"He's writing things as they occur at the time which, on reflection 24 hours or a week or so later, might be construed a little differently."

At one point Armitage wrote: "When the captain went to turn in I went to the cabin to ask the reason for his unfriendly manner towards me. After hesitating for a little...." and there it ends.